


Thank You, Good Night

by pseudonymous_writer_blogger



Category: NCIS
Genre: Action (sort of), Angst, Drama, F/M, Multi, Romance, Season 11 au, TIVA - Freeform, What could have happened, so we wouldn't be so tiva deprived
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 10:45:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6281506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudonymous_writer_blogger/pseuds/pseudonymous_writer_blogger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't want it this way, he wants her by his side to love and be loved, he wants Ziva to stay forever, to find her permanence here, in his arms. But he'd rather see her live a life she deserves than die in a life she never wanted. Season 10/11, my vision of how Ziva should have left. Tiva and Tate meshed into one, in a way. Mostly Tiva, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

_“Toda.”  He smiles at her thanks.  Playing the language game, are we?_

_“Prego,” he replies, and though his voice is sincere, he is anything but.  Kate died.  Another woman is here.  Does she really matter?_

_Her sister Tali died.  She was the best of them._ Them _, he thinks.  Mossad.  Maybe it should intimidate me, Kate._

 _She became like Gibbs.  Her eyes say everything to him.  She is telling the truth._ Why are you even _thinking_ of trusting her, Tony?  

_I don't know, Kate.  Maybe she’s just like us. Human._

Yeah, an Israeli Mossad assassin is totally in your league of panties, spring break, and beer, DiNozzo.   _She’s behind him with her dark hair and her Catholic school girl clothes, and he can picture her...and more._

_What, you don’t think I can charm her?  The DiNozzo genetic line is all about charm and handsome faces, Kate!_

_“Laila tov.”_

_“Buonanotte,” he exits, and he can hear her laughing behind him, following him after the observation between him and the Israeli._  Obviously, they didn’t pass down to you.

_Did too._

Did not.

_Did too._

* * *

How different circumstances are the next time they exchange languages.  They walk to her car from his apartment, where they’ve been sleeping these past few weeks.  They’ve turned their badges in a month ago, and now, she decides to explore her roots, to think.  He agrees without discussion to go with her--and for once, she has no problem with that.

It is astonishing how open they are to each other, how the first night they quit, _she_ was the one to come to his door, and not him; unlike the summer when Gibbs went on a “Mexican retreat”, so DiNozzo dubs.  She had cried and confessed that she had not meant to kill _him_ , but then again she does not know if she had meant to or not.  The lines blur between revenge and justice, murder and penalty just as her vision does as the tears fall; and he understood.  So he held her in his arms and told her, “At lo levad.  Don’t forget.  Okay?”

She questioned him, as she always did, because she was so accustomed to pain, rejection, disappointment.  Betrayal.  “After Adam?  I am… sorry, Tony.”

He held a puzzled look on his face, and leaned into hers once again, nose to nose.  “It’s okay, Ziva.”  He had put her head under his chin, and rocked her gently.

“Tony…” she mumbled, confused at the sudden acceptance she never heard; and eventually fell asleep against his chest.

So came the first night.

The first week went like this: they talked to each other, slept with each other, but never crossed the boundaries that invisibly held them in place.  Now, without work, their Movie Nights were unlimited.  So many times she had patted his cheek, and he had tussled her curls; then sat on the couch, shoulder to shoulder, and watched a movie.  

The second week began with a kiss.  They awoke to find themselves next to each other, and they had become used to the thought.  She looked beautiful to him, as she always did, with her curls that wrapped around his finger as he touched it, her olive skin against the rising sun, her thick eyebrows showing no emotion, as she also always did.  To others, at least; but now, he was joyful in the release of _their_ emotions, that now both of them would share and both of them could love.  Post-elevator them.

She had stared at him as he played with her hair, as he traced her jawbone, as she touched his eyebrows and cheeks; and eventually, they both leaned into it with a sigh.  It was sweet and tender, as a first kiss always is, and cautious, as they always are.  But as he looked into her eyes, he could see everything, as he always could: fear, relief, worry, and love.  And she could see the same. They kissed, but never crossed the other invisible line in the Monday morning of the second week.

The day was full of smiles and knowing glances that lasted for longer than ever, usually interrupted by a “Grab your gear,” or a “Give me an update,” or even a “Will you two stop staring at each other and help me get my hands unglued to the keyboard?”  Now, it held for an eternity.

The Movie Nights continued the following week: followed by more lips and sleep.  It was a small bed; somehow they fit.  Somehow they fit together.  Perhaps it was their overwhelming chemistry and their endless teasing and seduction.  Or maybe it was the desperation that began as lust than evolved into love.  He had tamed her; she had changed him.  It was a never-ending seesaw of love and hate and lust and anger; or all of them at once.  Often, they themselves could not tell, but then again, they could never tell whether they were in love or not.

Towards the end of the second week, their colleague showed up at their door, surprised to find them both there in a perfectly domestic setting: she was teaching him to cook pasta in his kitchen.  After he left with a few teases about “DO-Delilah” (“Not again, DiNozzo; enough with the interagency nicknames,” the probie replied) and a serving of pasta, they laughed, relieved he had not asked them about their company.  Perhaps he had not been surprised, they thought.  Perhaps it was meant to be.

The third week, they said the three magic words.  They travelled to the couch and smiled, but when she sat, her tears were immune to his coaxing.  To her, the world was hell on earth, because her father had died and she was a murderer and her true father was halfway across the world and being investigated for the good he had done.  It was infuriating; so as he rubbed the small of her back and whispered to her, he had an idea.  He jumped up, muttering a small, “I’ll be back.”  Popping the disk into the player, he settled down on the couch as she wore a puzzled face, tears in the corners of her eyes and wetting her cheeks--and yet, she was still beautiful to him.  His arms were around her in a flash, and he pressed his lips to his forehead as he squeezed her shoulder, folding her and her tears into his chest.  He had a confident smile etched onto his face, the wrinkles and the creases attracting her; and it was contagious.  Her eyebrows furrowed as she asked, “What are you planning?”  The opening notes sounded; and the character sang out, “The hills are alive…” and immediately she knew she loved him as her mouth grew into a sad grin, and eventually her eyes grew tired of being tired; and she was allowed to just _be_.

When it was over, she turned to him, but he was already staring at her.  Eyes are the window of the soul, they thought, and the windows were clearer than day itself.  Perhaps they said, “I love you,” a thousand different times before that night, perhaps more so with their eyes; and yet that night it was both.  Their lips clashed together like a lioness and her prey, and oh, was he a prey to her love, an attack stronger than any animal could harness.  When they separated for air, they could not hold back any longer.

“Ziva,” he breathed, wheezing from the kiss; and he was filled with the desperation to tell her.  They could die anytime.  They were targets before, yes; but then, they had weapons and authority.  Now, they only had each other; and it was enough to satisfy, to keep alive, but not to defend themselves.  “I love you.”

Her eyes darted, cornered to face the truth and _spit it out_ , and of course it was him to say it first, because that was always how it was.  But is this not what it is, she thought?  Movies and meals and kisses and sleep and comfort and anger and guilt and forgiveness-- _this_ is love.  “I love you, too, Tony.”

They grabbed each other, her fingers dextrously on his cheekbones, his ferociously meshed into her hair; and eight years of lust and betrayal and jealousy and vengeance and above all, _love_ was satisfied.  They sighed into each others’ mouths and looked into each others’ eyes without restraint for once, and now they could forever; for now, they no longer cared what rules held in place, or what obstacles planned to tackle them.  Now, in a moment of desperation, they understood how temporary the world is, how temporary their lives are, but how permanent love could be.

* * *

They exit his apartment, their hands joined together.  It’s not the first time they have found comfort by touch, but the first time they’ve made their comfort a publicity.  They laugh and smile, and he quotes another one of his movies, and she cannot help but think, _This.  This is what I have missed, what I have denied myself these years.  Or perhaps it was meant to be this way--that love is a gradual, slow climb, and when one slips, the other pulls the one back up to climb the mountain together._

Her car is a few blocks down, and the warm July air is comforting around them.  “So,” he starts, smiling his trademark grin.  “Tel Aviv, huh?  What will we be doing in a hot, sweaty hotel room?  Are there saunas there?”

She chuckles, and his smile brightens at the sight of hers.  “We’ll be staying at one of my father’s safe houses, Tony.  I don’t want people to interrupt.”

“By people, you mean Orli?” he asks, eyes searching.  He always knows what goes on in her mind.

“Mossad has always been,” she starts; then hesitates.  “Difficult.”

“Understatement.”

“Yes.”

“And,” he grins, “What exactly will we do in Tel Aviv?”

They both laugh, their eye contact a burning flame of desire.  She raises her eyebrow, and teases him; and they’re back in the game they play in the bullpen, in the field, in the car, undercover, in the elevator.  “Well, Tony, we will be alone.  It will be hot in Israel at this time of year, and perhaps we will be very warm.”  

They stop in front of her car, facing each other on the block.  “What exactly do you have in mind?” she says.

He steps closer as their smiles turn hungry, their usual game fueled by their newfound love.  He is nose to nose with her, and they are lost in each others’ windows, their souls clear and beautiful to each other.

“Well, Zee-vah---”

He is interrupted.  They did not see them coming, nor did they hear them.  It sounds like thunder and lightning, a storm in the calm, joyful tone they live in.  The hail is composed of lead speeding at them, the thunder of raining bullets, the lightning the screech of the black van.

Someone is after them.  Someone found them.  Someone took action.

They fall to the ground in a mist of pain, fury, and confusion; the peaceful air pierced by their screams.  He yells as two enter his side, one his shoulder, one his ankle; the ground is a painful reminder of gravity.  She grunts as three hit her back and stomach, two her shoulders, and one her thigh.  She falls sooner than he does.

The last thing they see is the each other.  Star-crossed lovers?  Perhaps.

Their eyes are open, willing themselves not to lose consciousness.  Eventually, it is her who succumbs first, and afterwards, he is happy to follow her into the darkness.

* * *

Pain.  It is the first thing to registers in his mind.   _Ziva_ is the second.

He forces himself to venture through the pain, to gain consciousness, and his eyelids are bricks and his eyelashes are glue; but if she survived so much, then he can see to it that she survives again.

A groan escapes his lips before he can stop himself, and afterwards, his eyes open easily.  A hospital.  The ceiling is composed of gray and white tiles.  Depressing.

“Don’t move,” a voice says, and gray hair and crystal blue eyes comes into his view.  He coughs with his weak lungs, a remnant of revenge for an act that did not occur.  He nods gratefully when Gibbs raises his lips to a cup of cool, refreshing water.

He opens his mouth, but Gibbs interrupts him.  “Don’t talk.”

His hospital bed is raised to a ninety-degree angle, so when his boss and father figure sits in the chair facing him, Tony can see him now.  “His name is Benham Parsa.  McGee and Abby are at the Navy Yard; Ducky and Palmer too.

“You were hit badly.  Ziva worse; she’s still in critical.”

He registers this, that she is suffering more than he is, as usual, and anger fuels his veins.  He makes eye contact with Gibbs, but he knows his request.  “You’re not moving from this bed, DiNozzo.  Not yet.”

“Boss--” His voice comes out raspy and startles him to no end.  How long has he been in here?  “How long have I been out?”

He sighs, and his blue eyes are full of concern that he cannot hide from his agent that’s become his son for the past 12 years.  “It’s been three days, Tony.”

His green eyes move from left to right, panicking.  Three days.  What happened?

Her car---her red Mini, Tel Aviv…

“What happened, Gibbs?”

A man of few words.  He places a file on his lap and opens it.  Like an interrogation, Gibbs spreads the photos out so Tony can see.

Blood--a lot of it, next to her bullet-ridden Mini, the color of their blood; tire marks on the gravel of the street.  Stills of the van sliding, opening, and firing--a black unmarked vehicle, difficult to track.  Finally, a man with a beard in his late 20s, wearing sunglasses.  Holding it, Tony looks up, and states, “Benham Parsa.”

His boss nods, knowing it’s more of a statement than a question.

They stare at each other; blue and hazel meeting, glaring, daring.  “No,” Gibbs orders.

“Boss, I want to catch this guy--”

“You’re staying here.  You took _four_ bullets, Tony.”

“I want to help!”

“And you’re not an agent!” Gibbs yells back, smacking the folder aside.  Rage is written in his every action, and but the senior agent knows him well enough to read the etched concern in his blue eyes.  “You and Ziva will stay here.”

The Gibbs stare pierces him, and he says solemnly, “She needs you, Tony.”

It’s then he realizes his boss has been saying his first name this whole time, and it’s then he succumbs to his orders.  Ziva needs him; but he needs her alive more, and Gibbs knows that better than anyone.

* * *

_The piano keys sound beautifully tragic.  Its rhythm beats to the pace of his life, of one lover lost to the next.  One almost lover lost to a gunshot flying, an ex-lover lost to a revolving door and a self-sacrificial act to join her team, now, another almost lover lost to the depths of the sea, to the unknown sand and water and salt.  Death does wonders to the people still alive.  He holds his gun in his left hand, plays the melody with his right._  No survivors.

_It’s his fault.  He killed Rivkin.  She loved him.  She was betrayed.  She is confused.  She was trained and manipulated and given no choice.  She should be happy, she shouldn’t have to be a killer.  She should be alive._

“I’m not just a killer anymore.  I’m an investigator.” _He misses her.  He misses her so terribly it hurts.  And he can’t take it any longer.  Shards of glass line the wall, circle around the piano.  If only he was as drunk as the bottles should have made him.  Then, he could really do it._

DiNozzo.  Snap out of it.

_Kate._

No, Ziva.

_Not helping._

Not much I can do about this.  She’s dead.  You’re not.  

_Same old story._

_He can hear the sarcastic laugh that brought him into fantasies of miniskirts and wet t-shirt contests but broke him into reality of the red splatter of blood, the copper taste of the wet substance of brain matter._ Are you comparing me to Ziva, Tony?

 _Yeah.  You’re both pretty badass, like Angelina Jolie in_ Mr. and Mrs. Smith _or_ Wanted _, you know?_

I’m not ninja-assassin, DiNozzo.

_Are too._

Am not.

_Are too._

Will you just--

_There’s nothing you can do.  My mind’s set, Kate.  I made her that way… I made her drown, made her fall, made her have to go back to her father and listen to him…_

You’re not her Jack Dawson, Tony.  You saved her, she hated you.  It’s that simple.

_No, it’s not._

_A pause._ You love her.

_A longer pause before he replies to imaginary-ghost-dead Kate.  He can never tell which one he talks to when she decides to show up.  At times, she’s naked, or wearing that wet t-shirt, or in her Catholic school girl uniform.  Other times, she’s transparent.  Most of the time, she has a bullet hole the size of a penny in her forehead, and he can taste it again, and he can feel it again, and he would shiver at the thought of the shock that struck him._

_Yes, Kate.  I do._

_Silence fills his mind, and he decides then, when he has finally admitted it, confessed it, when it is far too late; to fulfill his wishes.  His right hand stops playing, and his left hand lifts with an equal amount of heaviness and familiar lightness._

Don’t do it, Tony.

_He stops, because it’s far too loud and gruff to be imaginary-ghost-dead Kate.  He lifts his head from his bloody hands, broken by shards of glass; from the gun, from the black and white keys.  It’s Gibbs._

_It’s Gibbs._

_He’s never felt more ashamed before in his life; that Gibbs would see him at such a weak point.  But when he looks into his blue eyes, he can see it’s not disappointment nor surprise written in the depths of his soul, but pain and fear and concern._

_“Boss.”_

_“Tony.”_

_“Gibbs.”  His lips quiver._

_Gibbs walks to his partner, his apprentice, his son, his friend, and places his hand on his shoulder.  “You’re coming home with me, Tony.”_

_He nods, unsure of everything as he sleeps on his boss’s couch; but he knows one thing: Kate and Gibbs saved him tonight.  He will not succumb to guilt; no, not yet.  He will not succumb to the pain; no, not yet.  He will instead succumb to the anger and the rage, and let it consume him into vengeance.  Then, he will curl up into his dilemma of guilt, betrayal, pain, and love.  And it is then, face-to-face with whatever son of a bitch got her killed, he will die.  Then, Kate and Gibbs can’t save him.  He doesn’t want them to._


	2. two

They release her from critical in a stable, but comatose state.  They say she will wake up soon, that she is a fighter.  He is convinced she will wake.  He does not know how else he will survive.  He longs to see her; but despite his protests, his boss and the nurses have him tied to the bed because his injuries are just as bad as hers.

He knows it’s not true.

If it was, it would have been both of them, not just her, sleeping.

He’s unsure whether he should be angry or afraid.  Maybe it’s both.

He refuses to see Dr. Kate’s Sister; lest she comments on his choice of women again, like she did two years ago.  It still stings, that someone could see and point and poke his choices like that, because it is true.  It never works out.  Something like  _ this _ always happens.

* * *

 

Paula.   _ A revolving door, a bomb, and the words that echo, Too late, too late, too late. _

_ He goes to Jeanne, and tells her he loves her, for he truly does; but he knows it shouldn’t be this way.  It will end badly.  There is no happily ever after, he realizes, as he cries into her shoulder.  He’s already confronted it.  He does nothing about it. _

Tony…

_ What, Kate?  It’s harsh, and he realizes he hasn’t spoken to her this angrily before. _

What are you going to do?

_ He is afraid of the question, because the answer is  _ I don’t know. _  Jeanne is a reminder of the innocence left in the world, of the veil of ignorance others have who don’t look at dead bodies their whole lives, mindlessly taking pictures and asking questions and never thinking of the loved ones they left behind.  Jeanne is a reminder of the people he tries to save in his country. _

_ When he doesn’t answer in time, she says something that shatters him.   _ Just because Paula’s dead doesn’t mean you can honor her words by twisting them into this charade.  You can’t love her.

_ But I do! _

You think that matters?  You weren’t supposed to love her, Tony; and you better let go of it now before it’s too damn late!  Because you  _ know _ , DiNozzo.  You know it’ll end badly.  Better only for her than the both of you.

_ He is angry, then.  Because he does know.  But now, she’s confronted him with the reality of it all, and he didn’t want her too.  He didn’t want himself to.  He ignores her as they make love; he ignores her as they whisper, “I love you,” over and over again.  He does love her.  It doesn’t matter if they’re Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey at the end.  Jeanne is his solace, his savior from seeing his mistakes in forgetting Paula Cassidy.  He runs from the ghosts, and goes to his lover. _

Jeanne.   _ “Was any of it real, Tony?” _

_ Oh, it was.  A lot of it.  His heart rate speeds up to 60 miles an hour, and he is about to tell her, “Yes.  A whole lot of it,” when he remembers.  It will only make it worse.  He cannot choose between lover and duty, because duty is what makes Tony him.  His duty, his job, is his family; and it is what reaches deep into his heart and wrenches him into reality.  Anthony DiNozzo Jr. is an NCIS agent with the sworn duty to protect the United States of America from hostile threats and to give closure to the families of the dead, to provide for the fallen, to return the Marines and Petty Officers and those who serve their country favor and respect. _

_ “No.”  Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. _

I’m proud, Tony.  

_ No, you’re not.  You’re only saying that to make me feel better; because you’re always right, aren’t you?  Because I should’ve listened to you, that’s what you’re getting at, right? _

Grow up, DiNozzo! _  Now she’s the one who’s mad. _

“ _ I wish I’d never met you.” _

_ How’s that for a good-bye, Kate. _

_ A pause as he stares down at the foot of the elevator doors.   _ I’m sorry, Tony.

_ She truly is, he can tell.  Except he doesn’t want her pity, or even her  _ I told you so _.  So he walks away from the elevator, away from the green, angry, betrayed eyes that yell for mercy, for a single truth from him.  Away from the Kate he remembers and knows is the real Kate--not the wet t-shirt Kate, not the naked one, not the one who splatters her blood all over his face; but the one who shot a boy to do her job, and lost the laugh in her eyes for the next week.  Away from her dark eyes that whisper pity, and wish she was there with him. _

Kate.  No.  He doesn’t want to remember what happened after he scrubbed his face clean… 

But there is one thing for certain.  Fate has a twisted way of saying no to him.


	3. three

It’s a surprise when Director Leon Vance visits him and Ziva in the hospital, three days later.  But, then again, his perception of his boss’s boss has evolved into a more humane view of his weaknesses.  He no longer desires to shove the toothpick up his ass, but to take it, smash it, and throw it away into the trash.  He wears a black suit and tie, formal to the heavy weight of his eyes, of lost depth and meaning.  Director becomes Mr. Vance when Tony looks him in the eye.  To them, now, he is the equivalent to a grieving husband, and not a director of a federal agency.  He is, at the end of a day, only a man.

However, it is anything but a social visit.  He’s not even sure if the Director was even concerned in the first place; but when he pulls out a yellow file with pictures, passports, and a plan, he is relieved and burdened at the same time.  “How are you doing, Agent DiNozzo?” the Director asks formally.

“Just fine, Director,” Tony squirms; and changes the subject to avoid the unfamiliarity of a politician's concerns.  It's unsettling- he's never liked the way they pretend to care about their employees, never liked the politics, the fear of ruining the reputation of someone high in power in his job. “Where's Gibbs?”

Tony never cares if he ever rubs off as impolite, rude, childish, to his bosses.  First impressions are always ridiculously disastrous.

The Director glares at him, debating whether or not to lecture him or ask of his partner's well-being.  In the end, he settles with, “Why don’t we both skip the bull formalities, head right into business?”

“Ziva,” Vance says, “Has to die.”

Tony takes a moment to register this, consume it, chew it, and glare, stunned at him, before replying.  “What?”

The file is opened, and the name  _ Sophie Daniels _ appears on a blue passport; next to it, her picture.  “They’ll keep coming after her, DiNozzo.  This has to happen, or they won’t stop until she’s dead.  We have to fake her death.”

“That’s ridiculous!” he yells to his superior, whose stoic face fuels him more, startling the nurses outside.  “Parsa’s after all of us, he’s not just after Ziva.  We’re all in danger, she doesn’t have to leave.  With all due respect, Director, I’m her partner, and I have her six.”

“I understand that, Agent DiNozzo; and I’m asking you to understand me,” his raised voice replies, closing the folder and shoving the piles of photos and documents back in.  “Mossad has many enemies, Ziva even more.  With Eli David gone, they’ll think it’s safe to attack Mossad, its operatives, its former operatives, and his only remaining family.”

He doesn’t want to lose her.  Not again.  He cannot contain his worry when she is out of his sight since the explosion, since the elevator; and being separated from her tastes like the desert as his lips parch under the pressure, under the mere threat of sending her away.  “And Ziva can fight back.   _ We _ can fight back.  If they have enough resources to target us, what makes you think this whole  _ Sophie Daniels _ fake death thing will work?”

“You think you can protect her?”  The Director slams the case file down on his lap once again, for dramatic effect, to convince him, or if he is actually concerned with the well-being of his good-for-nothing friend’s daughter; Tony isn’t sure.  But it reaches him.  His next words do.  “ _ You can’t protect your partner from trained assassins, DiNozzo _ .  There is no protection in this world.”

He seems lost, now, as he storms out of the room, leaving the file open on his lap; like so many husbands Tony has seen over the years, widowers.  The past year has made Leon Vance human for him, a look into the weak side of him; who he truly is when put to the test.  Now he has his answer.   _ We are all alone _ , she whispers inside his head, and even in the dark, in the other room, with her closed eyes and pale lips, still she reaches him; reads his eyes and mind and heart.  He loves her.  He can’t let her go, can’t escape from the toxic beauty she encases him with, the elegance and grace in her every move, and he can never see her walk away from him, or leave her on the tarmac again, one short.  He can’t.

* * *

_ Their first real, raw conversation after it happens is in autopsy.  Metal, scotch, milk, and blood.  Loneliness and inevitability. _

_ “Surprised it took you so long,” he says, and ghosts have been whispering in the shadows of the cold, metallic room for and ages, waiting for her to step inside. _

Surprised it took you, long, Tony.

_ He smiles as Kate reappears.  She is there when death reeks in the air, and again, she is the Kate with the copper, iron taste of blood and brains. _

_ “Thank God for Ducky,” he tastes the Scotch in the bitterness of his voice, masked by the lightness of it.  He realizes that now, he is talking to both his partners at the same time.  Kate and Ziva. _

_ Both of them are trying to convince him of something.  Something untrue. _

_ “You have not listened to anything I have said,” she says as she walks toward him, hair in brown curls and shaking from her right temple.  He longs to touch it, to put it behind her ear; but he cannot.  His hand is preoccupied with the drink in his hand; and the cup looks red with wrath of blood and anger and guilt. _

I’m sorry, Tony.  Again,  _ the Kate of death says.  Autopsy is where all his ghosts visit him. _

_ “Well, it’s only been three years.  I’m a slow learner.”  His sarcasm doesn’t slow her down at all, whereas Kate would have bit him in the ass for it.  Their banter is one thing that’s different from Kate and him.   _

She’s trying to help, Tony.  So am I.    

_ Yeah.  It’s not like you ever screwed up protecting POTUS. _

_ “And a slow healer,” she says, and sighs deeply.  He realizes that Jenny was her friend, too.  Knew her longer than him, better than him.  He should've listened to Ziva when she said something was wrong, should have felt it, should have known. “You’re crying over spilled...milk.” _

_ Look at that, Kate.  She got the idiom right. _

_ He can feel her looking at him with her mouth open, irritated, rolling her eyes with disgust. _

_ “It’s not milk that I spilled.”  It’s not.  It’s the red, copper taste of blood; it’s the raw skin beneath the bullet holes, the pain she endured when they should have had her back, when it was their job to protect her.   _

_ They are unsure whether it’s cowardly or brave--escape from the treacherous grasp of a disease, a slow death; or face the mistakes of the past.  Both end the same way.Everything does, for that matter.   _

_ Death, he knows- from the hundreds of crime scenes, from his own life (his mother), from the bullets and knives (Pacci, Kate, Paula)- is inevitable.  _

_ “Do not do this, Tony.” _

She’s right.  Don’t, DiNozzo.

_ He speaks to both of them, looking at his current partner like an anchor.  “Don’t do what?  Blow my protection detail?  Blow my undercover assignment?” _

_ Kate sighs.   _ Tony, sometimes life happens, and it’s not anyone’s fault.

_ “Those sound like apologies,” Ziva scolds, with an undertone of tenderness.  Another difference between the two partners.  While Kate retains the harshness of things, Ziva serves it on a silver platter, while she does it with gentleness; when Kate plays good schoolgirl, Ziva bites back and leans over him and wears her bikini just to read. _

_ He observes these with a cross between a grunt and a chuckle as Kate makes an exasperated sound behind him.   _ Would you stop drinking and listen to us?

_ To spite her, he pulls out another glass for Ziva.  The tension, the grief, is raw; and she manages to hold him together, to give him a small smile that comes out as a wince as she pours the Scotch into the glass, the liquid sloshing.   _

_ They sit silently, the guilt brewing in their drinks.  They both know the image of the diner, walking in, seeing the blood, the bodies, the broken glass… It’s imprinted in their minds, engraved underneath their eyelids; that when they close their eyes for a single moment, they will see Jenny, smiling, pixie cut, red head, blood--dead. _

_ He should have listened to her.  They were partners.  He was responsible for the director of a federal agency and-- _

Stop it, DiNozzo.

_ She shouldn’t have been alone.  We were supposed to be there. _

_ And it occurs to him that she confirms his deepest fears--to die alone, to live a life for a country that does not and will never be able to pay you back half as much as you give to it and not pass on a life to remember him afterwards.  It frightens him, it muffles his hope, and as he looks from Kate to Ziva, he sees he’s no step further than he was five years ago. _

_ “She died alone.” _

_ Ziva nods.  “We are all alone.”  Her voice carries a tinge of regret and a heavy burden of sorrow.  For her, she is alone; he knows this for a fact--sister Tali, Daddy David… _

_ “Yeah, thanks for that.”  He grimaces.  They’re partners.  They can tell each other anything--and he’s half drunk, anyways, and will be more drunk later, so what’s the point of not confessing your fears?  “I just mean, she never got married.  Never had any children.   Never even heard her talk about it,” he whispers, voice breaking as he realizes--he never talks about it, either.   _

_ She sighs deeply, shifting away from the conversation, and he knows she understands, that she has the same fear--of leaving this life without leaving anything behind, without anyone to mourn over you.  And as he looks at her, takes in how breath-taking she is, they know they’re both thinking the same thing. _

_ “Paris.”  She looks at him, a ghost of a smile etched into her mouth.   _

Oh, God, Tony, don’t start.

_ “That’s when it must have happened.”  Gibbs.  Jenny.  He can’t imagine how Gibbs feels, doesn't want to experience the sense of despair he had when Kate died, no, not again.  He doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to imagine Ziva dead, multiple gunshot wounds, bleeding to death in a diner in the middle of nowhere… _

_ “The two of them alone, in another world.”  _

_ “Putting their lives in each others’ hands everyday.”  Like us, Ziva? _

Really?

_ You don’t have to join if you don’t want to participate in sharing notes about what teacher’s doing who, Caitlin. _

Shut up, DiNozzo.  Here I was, feeling sorry for you…

_ “Not to mention the long nights.” _

_ Kate groans, but he knows the conversation is anything but humorous.  It’s fearful. _

_ “It was inevitable,” he says, attempting to be insightful, but also believing that it’s true.  When you spend everyday with a woman, when you look into her eyes for hours on end, when you protect each other and stand firmly by each other, you fall in love.  It was what happened with Kate.  With Jeanne.  Ziva. _

_ But then she turns, a puzzled reaction on her face.  “Nothing is inevitable.” _

_ They sit in silence, their grief a bond too strong to break by words.  It takes him a moment to realize that the Kate of death is gone, the ghosts he fears and yet loves disappeared, repelled by his current partner.  He’s unsure whether to feel relieved or sad, whether the burden is lighter or heavier.  But he knows Kate will be back.  He just knows it will be different, that he’s moved on, that he loved her but he can love again, that he loved her in a different way.  Because, as he said, it can happen. _

_ Just _

_ Like _

_ That. _

_ He snaps in his mind as he turns the light off. _


	4. four

Her eyes open, with his constant worrying from the next door down, the next week.

His eyes open nightmare after nightmare of her not waking up, of a green flatline and the tremulous fear of the unshakable beep of the heart monitor.  

She screams for him as soon as she wakes.

He hears it.

“Tony?”  he hears, and blinks, registering the voice he’s craved for the past week, ever since he’s woken up; yearned to hear her teasing and her love.  But he can barely walk, can barely move without pricks of invisible needles in his stomach, his shoulder, everywhere the bullets scarred him.  So, he decides to yell back; and he doesn’t care if the other patients hear them, if the nurses are angry.  He needs her to know they’re both alright.

“Ziva!  Ziva!”

The nurses swarm into her room to stabilize her, and so does his own nurse who he’s come to know as Tracy.  The darkness overwhelms him as Tracy, damn her logic, sedates him.  “Gotta put you two together next time,” she mutters; and those are the last words he hears.

 

Like the first time, the first thing he registers is the pain, still sharp and stinging after one week.  Though his arm is fairly healing, in a tight dark blue sling, and his ankle is merely a scrape of some sort; it’s his abdomen that eats him away the most.  He feels as though a pipe is sticking in his right side, although it’s merely the bandages; but he knows she’s feeling worse.

So,  _ Ziva _ is the second thought, again.  He wrenches his head to the side, expecting Gibbs-and seeing Ziva.  It’s  _ Ziva _ , her eyes closed and her face flushed with blood again, and she looks alive; the beeping in the background and the morphine proves it.  He never thought his hospital room was large, but now, seeing it fits two people and two chairs adjacent to the door, he sees that it’s large enough to fit his needs (like a hospital is supposed to).  And he needs her.

He loves watching her.  When she wakes up, she’ll laugh at him and tease him for it, biting at his love; but he loves watching her brown hair seem golden in the sun through the window, and the way her face rises to her nose, then dips, and the way her lips curve around in a pale smile and her chin drops down to her neck.  He loves to watch her breathe as her chest moves up and down with the hospital sheets.  He loves to sudden twitch of her nose and the movement behind her eyelids.  He loves her.

“Done being creepy, DiNozzo?”

“Boss,” he says automatically at the gruff voice.  Years of training have made him address Gibbs reflexively as Boss, and yet he’s become so much more.  “I was just…” The excuse doesn’t come, for once, and he’s left being speechless, and for the first time, slightly embarrassed in front of his boss.

“Yeah,” Gibbs sighs as he sits in one of the tightly placed chairs.  “I know what you were doing.”

A pause ensues, and it’s the most awkward it’s been between them since E.J.  “As in?”

“Staring at Ziva.”

“Okay,” he says, stretching out the O.  

Silence.

He wants to laugh in the unspoken air between them, but he doesn’t dare bring up Rule 12.  He vaguely wonders if it had been different.  If it had been him and Kate, or when it was him and Cassidy.  He knows how it went with E.J., and maybe that was because she was SecNav’s niece, or simply because she wasn’t afraid of him like people were supposed to be afraid of the great almighty Gibbs.

But now?  With Ziva?

Like  _ Meet the Parents _ , he thinks, wincing at the thought of him and Gibbs having to propose to each other in an airport, hands around each other; then the devil himself snaps him out of his thoughts.

“DiNozzo, do you work for me?”

He blinks, startled at the question.  “Huh?” he turns to look at Gibbs, a hint of a smile curling around his lips and his gray sideburns showing a tiny bit of youth in them.

“Are you an NCIS agent?”

“Well, yeah, Boss; are you still losing some memory or some--”

The glare he gets is unwelcoming, and he realizes what his boss is saying.  He has no badge.  “Ah, I see what you’re getting at,” he says goofily, chuckling at the idea.  “No badge, no rules?”

Gibbs nods, and he smiles for the first time, it seems, in decades.  “You see, you idiots couldn’t get it for a long time.  Even if you didn’t quit, it would’ve been fine.  Besides,” Gibbs pauses, and looks at him, his blue eyes full of mischief; a face of laughter Tony hasn’t seen in him in a very long time.  “You two would’ve done it behind my back anyway.”

To this, Tony laughs warmly, a relief to the hell that’s been his cage for two weeks.  “Yeah,” he breathes out, and the pain is gone because of this sudden approval.  “Yeah, probably.”  There is no movie quote that can radiate his happiness, that can even  _ begin _ to describe his joy--but then he remembers.  The week before.  Director Vance.

His smile drops, and so does his heart; and it shatters as the hope of achieving the real American dream does.  “Boss.  Did Vance tell you anything?”

His expression darkens, his eyes full of concern.  “Tell me what, DiNozzo?”

“That he wants to go all James Caan in  _ Eraser  _ on her.  Maybe pull a little Arnie, too, but I think he’s leaving that part to us.”

“No,” he says curtly; and Tony has enough faith in Gibbs to know Vance is going to get it.  “He didn’t tell me.”

Tony nods, and replies, “Well, he is.  It won’t work; and if he does it behind our backs, Abby’s out to get him.”

“Out to get who?” a soft voice says, and Tony jerks his head to his left.  Her eyes steady him, playing out a thousand different conversations in one glance.

_ Thank God. _

_ You’re alright. _

_ We’re alright. _

_ Did you miss me? _ , she asks with a quirk of her eyebrow.

_ More than you’ll ever know,  _ he replies with his smile.  

“Hi, Ziver.”

Ziva turns, surprised at the deep, gentle voice interrupting their private conversation; but her smile is all Tony needs to stay alive, to stay peaceful at the intrusion.  “Gibbs,” she sighs, her voice hoarse and laced with relief and heavy longing.  He comes and taps her knuckles, smooths out her hair from her temple, finally raises a cup of water to her lips; and admiration is an understatement to describe the joy etched into her face.  Sometimes, Tony is poisoned with jealousy when she chooses Gibbs over him; but he realizes he would do the same thing, painfully.

It’s not to say that he loves Gibbs more, or that he loves Ziva less; it’s the fact that lover and father come in different hands, that undefined and solidity have different priorities.  That years ago, on a tarmac, next to a cargo plane, Gibbs was given the same two choices.  He chose him--not because he hated her, or that there was a difference between the amount of love and trust; but because in the beginning, it was them.  Gibbs and DiNozzo.  The old and the young, the callused and the to-be-callused.

So he watches as Gibbs strokes her hair gently, his eyes an expression of love and respect, and his jealousy dissipates as quickly as it arrived.  “You okay?” Gibbs asks.

“I am fine, Gibbs,” she says, as is the normal, expected response, but he bites his sarcasm back for another day--she just woke up, after all.  “But, as I said, out to get who?”

Gibbs walks back to his seat and sits down with a sigh, nodding to Tony to narrate the first part for him.  However, a pair of boots clink along into the room, followed by a voice that yells, “Abby, don’t hug them too hard!”  Surprisingly, she doesn’t, and the happiest Goth alive proclaims her joy at finding them both alive and awake in a string of run-on sentences.

“Tony!  Ziva!  You guys are okay, oh my gosh, I was so worried, I was worried sick; and I had to skip Sister Rosita’s bowling party when I heard about it because then Gibbs and McGee just dragged me to the lab with all your stuff to analyze and to keep an eye on me because McGee here doesn’t think I can take care of myself, plus I’d rather not spend overnight at my lab alone ever since the big boom thing, you know?  Oh, and Ducky and Palmer would have come, but they have a body to identify and autopsy because Gibbs tracked down one of the shooters; but he wouldn’t exactly talk politely.  So anyway, I found out what bullets were made, how they’re connected to the badass Parsa, that son of a---”

“Abby!” McGee says breathlessly as he catches up to them and enters to room.  “Wow,” he observes his two team members.  “You two look like crap.  Were the two of you---”

“McProbie, Abbs!” Tony interjects before he can continue.  “We feel like crap, believe me.”

“Aw, you poor  _ baby _ !” Abby cries, and rushes to his bedside.  “We’re all going to make you guys feel better at your apartments when you get out, okay?  And Ziva,” their sister continues as she hurries over to Ziva’s side as well, who is smiling broader than ever, Tony notices, for the first time in a very long time.  “We’re all going to pitch in to buy you a new car.”

“Thank you, Abby,” Ziva grins, but her eyes yell confusion to him.  “That’s very kind of all of you.”

“But anyway,” Tony says, tone growing serious.  “Ziva asked the who, what, when, where, and why of all this.”

“Do not forget the how, Tony.”

Gibbs stands to let Abby and McGee sit down, then gives the go for Tony to speak once everyone has quieted down.

“Benham Parsa,” Tony starts, mimicking the dark tones of a movie trailer.  “A badass who tried to cross Leroy Jethro Gibbs and his faithful sidekick Anthony DiNozzo--”

“Sidekick?” his boss questions, and her laugh lightens the mood even more.

“--along with his irresistibly beautiful foreign companion Ziva David.”  Afterwards, he outlines the crimes Gibbs told him during the past week, and he’s in a horrible mood by the end of it because her smile disappears as the humor in the room clears.

“Well, as you said, Tony,” she says, voice cautious yet strong in conviction, “he’s only  _ tried _ to cross Gibbs.  I’m sure we’ll get him soon.”

“Not we’ll,” Gibbs interjects sternly.  “You two stay here.”

“I doubt Tony’ll last long in here,” McGee quirks.  “You’d get kicked out by all the nurses.”

“Or kicked back to Italy by Ziva because of your complaining,” Abby suggests.

“Oh, shut up, McLucky.  Speaking about getting lucky,” Tony bullies as Tim’s eyes go wide, “How’s DO-Delilah doing, anyway?”

“Got a new girlfriend, McGee?” Gibbs raises an eyebrow as McGee’s ears turn pink.

McGee smiles, and though his face yells embarrassed, he welcomes the nicknames he’s missed ever since they got the call about shots and blood and  _ Tony’s apartment _ .  “I do, Boss.  Her name’s Delilah Fielding.”

“Don’t you worry, Tim,” Abby says protectively, wrapping her arms around Tim in a tight hug.  “If she hurts you one bit, I’ll remind her I’m--”

“One of those scientists who can kill someone and leave no forensic evidence,” the team chimes.

Tony groans shortly after the mantra they’ve become accustomed to.  “Hospital food for who knows how long until we recover, Ziva!”

Ziva rolls her eyes, but the smile never leaves them.  “Oh,  _ please _ , Tony.  Stop being such a pain in the tail.”

“In the butt.  Oh, please, Ziva, just cook for five months when we get released.   _ Please _ .”

Ziva makes an “O” with her mouth, but he can see the smile in her eyes.  “Oh?  I distinctly remember you complaining about a certain tuna lasagna I made.”  Her eyes turn upward, and she lifts a finger to her chin, tapping it in deep thought.  “Ah!  That’s right!”

She snaps, a mischievous yet deadly smile plastered onto her face.  “‘Zee-vah, what is this  _ smell _ ?  It smells like those dumpsters I tell the probie to dig through to find something!’”

Tony laughs obnoxiously, along with McGee and Abby, grateful the banter resumes into its old routine.  “I wasn’t kidding!”  He turns to his boss for help, eyes smiling from the conversation.  “Listen to this, Gibbs; she makes this tuna lasagna--tuna from the  _ can _ , damn it, from the  _ can _ , mixes in cheese, onions,  _ God _ knows what--then she completely  _ forgets _ about it and leaves it in the fridge for a whole week.  Then what does she do?”

They’re all laughing at this point, and he knows when he’ll say the punchline that he’s made her forget about the conversation she woke up on, that this is the part at the end of the movie where the camera zooms out and everyone’s happy.  

“She makes us eat it for the next  _ three _ days, Boss.”

They recount the tales from the past three weeks (without the other parts, though) to their father, smiling and laughing for the first time in months together, as a  _ team _ .

For the first time in two weeks, he sleeps without the ghosts.


	5. five

Leon Vance is a reasonable man.  At most times, he’s happy, content; perhaps even jubilant.  This is not most times.

Jackie was innocent.  She was his solace--when Eli David was in town, when the explosion occurred and Hadar died; when Gibbs went to Mexico, when his morals were questioned--Jackie was his anchor.

A powerful name.

_ Jackie _ .

_ Jackie’s dead.  She’s dead. _

His family, even worse,  _ feels _ dead; and Eli David is to blame for this.  It’s not only Jared and Kayla who’s mourning, it’s his team.  Gibbs, DiNozzo, McGee, David.   _ David _ .

_ Take care of my daughter, Leon, like you care for your own.  When I leave and she hates me, and does not go to me; please, Leon.  I implore you.  Ziva is my remaining child.  _

“Director Vance?  Director Vance?”

He blinks out of his reverie, climbing out of his vision; Cynthia’s voice jarring him awake.  Damn Gibbs, his protege DiNozzo, and his contagious stubbornness.  All he desires is to fulfill his diplomatic friend’s last wish--Eli David, whether he is to blame for the heavy sorrow and absent banter in the bullpen, whether he is a bastard or not, Eli David was his friend, and he loved his daughter. _This_ , he knows for sure; and certainty is rare when on the subject of former Director of Mossad Eli David.

“Sorry, Cynthia,” he acknowledges with a heavy sigh.  “Send him in.”

“Already on it, Director.”  The conversation ends with a soft click and a harsh door opening.

“Leon,” Gibbs enters with a swirl of his jacket.  “What’s wrong?”

“Gibbs,” he says, walking and gesturing toward the large table across from his desk, “It’s time we had a talk about this past year.”

He chuckles gruffly, sitting down with a sigh.  “Well, Director; talk, then.”

One look, and Leon knows.  “DiNozzo told you.”

“Told me what?”

“Not in the mood.”

Gibbs nods and smirks, raising his eyebrows.  “Aren’t we all.”

Smacking the same yellow file he showed his partner at the hospital two weeks ago, Vance grimaces.  They don’t realize that being the big chair implores him to make the decisions, the hardest ones; no one notices how the chair is too big and too small at the same time.  It’s not enough to fulfill his morals, his desires; but it’s enough to keep the peace.  It’s this understanding that got him the job.

“Gibbs, you know I don’t like it as much as you do, but--”

“Then don’t do it.  We’ve protected her this far, we can protect her again.”

“Well, this time’s different!” Leon raises his voice without warning, startling himself.  It outrages him when Gibbs has no expression change at all, though expected.  

It’s the same thing over and over again.

_ We can protect her. _

_ I can protect her. _

_ She’ll be fine. _

_ I’ll come back home. _

_ I’ll protect you, Jackie. _

_ I love you. _

_ Protection doesn’t exist. _

“Ziva David is at risk.  Her father was a target, and who’s to say she isn’t?”   _ Anyone can be a target with us around. _

“We’re always targets.  And as long as she’s out there, without us at her back,  _ we _ can’t protect her.”  Gibbs is furious, his eyes throwing rocks at Vance, already broken and beaten down.

“Gibbs,” he starts, wanting to be stern, to be strong, to lead this sinking ship to the shore to resupply, to start again, to find relief; but his voice comes out cracking and weak.  “The last words I ever heard from Eli…”

Leon closes his eyes, focusing on the back of his eyelids, seeing the image again and again and again.

_ Leon. _

_ The bullets raining down. _

_ Hate. _

_ Running. _

_ Ziva. _

_ Falling down. _

Please.

_ Windows. _

_ Broken, like his soul; shattering, like his heart; empty and quiet, like his mind. _

_ He feels… _

_ Hollow. _

“I’ve got to protect her, Gibbs.  I have to.”

A rough, callused hand connects with his shoulder.  His chocolate, surprised eyes meet with Gibbs’s, and for once, someone,  _ someone _ understand Leon’s dilemmas.  “I’ll try to explain it to them.  But she’ll come back once we get rid of Parsa, right, Leon?”

This man lost his wife and his daughter.  Of course he understands.  Vance lets his hand drop from his shoulder, standing up with Gibbs.  They shake hands, and the friendship that originated from a Danish pastry is heavy with experience. “Thank you, Gibbs.  Yes.  She will be back.”

Leon Vance watches as his friend exits the room, and sits in his chair slowly, a tremble under his knees.  Gibbs’s knee trouble is contagious, as well, he decides.  His eyes glance toward the sun’s glint on a picture frame.  Kayla, Jared.  Jackie.

Leon Vance is a reasonable man.  At times, he’s exhausted and curt.  Today, he is both, and more.  Leon Vance is angry and faithful.  He will do his best to avenge and protect.  Today, it is all he lives for.

* * *

Their hands are callused from the butt of the SIGs they use, cut with scars visible and unseen of battles only they know about.  Their hands also fit perfectly together, Tony sees.

Her hand is hard and gripping, and yet soft when her fingers hit ivory keys on the piano.  His is soft and comforting, calloused from the years as a cop then as an agent, the imprint of a gun etched into the curves of his palm, his trigger finger itchy.

He knew he’d come to this: he had to tell her about Vance.  About letting her go. About faking her death and forcing her to leave everything she’s built here.

He doesn’t like it.

But he doesn’t have to.

Her safety is all that matters to him; and he knows Vance is right.

This, though inconvenient and torturous, is necessary to keep her alive.

He brings her fingers up to his, kissing her knuckles.  “Good morning,” she smiles; but the air is gone when she sees his frown.  “What’s wrong, Tony?”

It’s been three weeks since Director Vance came to him with the instructions; and their rehabilitation has been progressive---Tony can walk, with crutches, now; Ziva, through with protest, is confined to a wheelchair. Their room is the same, and they still sleep in their hospital beds and gowns.

“Vance came to me three weeks ago, before you woke up,” Tony begins.  “Your father was a target, and he pointed out that you could be, too.”

“We are all targets, Tony,” she replies, confusion burning into her eyes; nervousness seeping into both their hearts.  

“I know, but...you the most.  He wants to fake your death---”

“No.”  Her eyes are wide, angry; he expected it this way.  “I will not run away from my problems, my enemies---”

“But they’ll keep coming after you, no matter what; and if they can get to Eli and Jackie, they can get to you, too, Ziva,” Tony pleads.  He doesn’t want it this way, he wants her by his side to love and be loved, he wants Ziva to stay forever, to find her permanence  _ here _ , in his arms.  But he’d rather see her live a life she deserves than die in a life she never wanted.

Pain flashes through her eyes, and he knows he’s said the wrong thing.  “Jackie...was collateral damage.  It is both my father’s and my faults that she died.  That Kayla and Jared lost a mother and Director Vance lost a wife.”

“Ziva,” Tony whispers, and his hands always find her.  His fingers slip through her hair, bringing her closer to him; her eyes of glass visible as water spills from her eyelashes.  Their noses touch, and the rest is history.  Her lips, like that third week, are salty from her tears when he kisses them, and they taste like salt, like sweat.  And yet, it tastes sweet.

“It’s not your fault, you have to understand.”

“But it is, Tony; all of it, all this bloodshed is from  _ my _ hands,” she moans quietly into his mouth, craving the contact between them, erasing all air and space until they are one.  “Maybe Vance is right.  You’re right.  It’s best for me to leave.”

“You can’t think that, Ziva, we’re your family, your home,” he says, stopping them, pulling apart as he cradles her head in his hand, wiping her tears away with his thumb.  “You can’t, you can’t…”

“If I don’t, then who?  Who is next to die from a David’s hands?  Who is the next collateral damage?”

Frustratingly, she’s right, he thinks; and their foreheads collide as he closes his eyes in anguish.  “Don’t leave, Ziva.”  

_ Don’t leave me. _

She shushes him and his tears, her own slipping down into his fingers.  “I don’t want to, either, but...it is necessary.”

“I thought you once told me nothing is inevitable,” he protests.

“I didn’t say it was.”

_ Is it inevitable for me to realize you can’t be with me?  For me to see you can never stay?  Is it inevitable? _  “Never mind.”

_ Is it inevitable for you to leave? _

“Promise me, Ziva,” he whispers, the air heated between them, “You won’t forget me.”

She knows what he means.  Don’t forget me is equivalent to always remember me.  Wait for me.  Wait for us to work.  “You’ll have to promise me, too, Tony.”

He nods, shaking against her forehead, hands holding each other together and yet apart.  “I promise.”

“I promise as well.”

* * *

 

_ Ghosts seem to fancy him, he realizes.  Maybe not in that way, but in some way, they do, since they keep on visiting him.  Mike Franks died in the middle of the street, in the rain, with a stab wound in his chest. _

_ His lungs were bad, but it wasn’t what killed him. _

_ Vaguely, again, he wonders if this was better than the slow, painful way.  He closes his eyes, thinking, with his glass of Scotch rolling around in his hand. _

_ “Thinking about me, Tony?” _

_ He jerks his eyes open, sitting up straight to duty.  That laugh, the laugh belonging to that redhead; damn her---she has to dump him into a damn undercover operation, then die after he’s forgiven her.  Jenny. _

_ “Agent DiNozzo.”  She emerges from the darkness behind his movie cabinet; from the looks of it, from his bathroom.  Strange. _

_ “Director Shepard.  What is it you want?” _

_ “You never considered us friends?”  Jenny walks, her red hair long once again, tied up in a bun like the last time he saw her.  Except this time, her clothes aren’t blood stained and she bears no bullet wounds. _

_ “I don’t know, did you ever consider me human?” _

_ “Hmm,” she says, and seems to pick up a glass that sits next to him.  “Pour me some?” _

_ “Why you this time?  Come to tell me to take care of Gibbs now that he’s lost both of you?” _

_ Jenny winces.  Tony remembers the looks and the smiles Gibbs managed with her; something he thought he’d never see regularly.  Then it was all his fault, it all came crashing down in a montage of memories of Paris, of Jeanne, of French arms dealers, of lies and deceit, and  _ “No.” 

_ They were partners. He can’t believe he’s screwed up so much in one year. _

_ “Mike Franks was...exceptional.  I brought him in thinking he’d refresh Gibbs’s memory after the explosion...didn’t work the way I wanted it to.” _

_ “Nothing really does, does it?”  He smirks, one side of his mouth limply lifting, though he isn’t really amused.  Now he just wants to see her snap, snap the way he did when she died. _

_ “It was my order, Tony,” she says, as if she can read his mind.  Her eyes are somber, as somber as he’s drunk, like he always is when someone dies.  “My own orders got you into that undercover operation, got you messed up with Jeanne.” _

_ “I understand that,” he spits bitterly, taking another splash into his glass. _

_ “Got me killed.” _

_ “Yeah.”  His throat closes up with the memory of blood and a blue blouse and death in the air.  The silence as he had to answer her phone.  The questioning voice that asked without a clue, “Jen?  Jenny?  You there?” _

_ The quiver in his voice as he told him. _

_ The betrayal, the disappointment he could sense wafting through the cell phone. _

_ He let Gibbs, Ziva, Jenny down.  Himself. _

_ “It’s not your fault, Tony.” _

_ He scoffs.  So easy for her to say.  “Yeah, it was.” _

_ “It’s been three years.  Still not over it?” _

_ He glares at her green eyes halfway to slits, shouting at him to let go of the guilt.  “You think anyone gets over getting their boss killed?” _

_ “If she was a bad boss.”  Her smile catches him off-guard, and his smirk becomes real. _

_ “Despite everything, Jenny,” he says, hesitating, but deciding to tell her the truth. “You were a good boss.  You were a good person.” _

_ She purses her lips, red hair fading; and he can see her doubt as another montage of images flash through their minds.  But Jenny nods, holding eye contact with him before whispering, “Thank you.” _

_ She disappears like the guilt does after that, because like Gibbs could do nothing for Mike, he and Ziva could do nothing to save Jenny Shepard.  Some things are inevitable. _

Told you so.

_ “Great!  More ghosts.” _

_ Kate laughs, and her smile is the most inviting thing he’s ever seen since E.J. left, babbling about skylights and orange rooms, so he laughs with her.   _

What did you think?  I’d leave you alone like you told me to? _ It’s the teasing Kate this time.  Her brown hair comes down with her bangs, and it’s a wonder why he never looked at her that way.  The way lovers do. _

_ He decides better late than never, because E.J. is gone, Ray and Ziva are on; and who is he to deny himself of the pleasures of life?  Or, the afterlife, in this case? _

_ “I do admit, Katie, the last time you saw me, I was feeling down, no hope, you know, Red kind of stuff, Morgan Freeman in Shawshank.  Now I’m him at the end, I guess.” _

_ He ponders how to change this Kate into the Kate wearing the Catholic school uniform, then screaming at him to stop as wind blows in her direction. _

Funny you say that while you’re getting drunk off Scotch.

_ “What are you even here for?” he asks, curious to see why another friend has visited him.  Usually it’s for a warning, for a relief, for a savior.  Now, maybe ghosts can have fun, too. _

_ Kate shrugs.  She’s wearing that pink shirt she wore on that day Ari Haswari invaded their lives, left a mark, and shot Gerald.  If only it could turn into a navy blue and plaid miniskirt. _

_ I guess I’m here to show you the circle of things, the irony of them. _

_ “Cheesy.”   _

_ Kate rolls her eyes, and sits in the same spot Jenny did.   _ Think about it, Tony.  And stop trying to imagine me in one of your Playboy magazines, damn it.

_ He chuckles, putting his glass down.  “How the hell did you know?” _

Because I know you, DiNozzo.

_ Her head inclines, and she wears a rare, sad smile; and he knows she’s being serious.  _  If I hadn’t died, Ziva wouldn’t come.  You wouldn’t save her life in the desert.  Granted, Mike and Jenny would’ve still died.  But you saved Ziva, you saved so many other people, you learned about Gibbs’ family, you got to lead your own team without me breathing down your back.  The thing is, death and endings always bring rebirth, life, beginnings.  Don’t be held down by some guilt that shouldn’t exist because most things aren’t your fault.  It’s fate that holds the irony, that makes things go around.

_ They sit in silence.   _

_ “I have no idea what you just said.”  He does, though: Ziva and Kate, Jenny and Vance, E.J. and Ray.  Some things must end for something else to begin: better or not, the feeling is bittersweet.  But he just wants to recreate the moment. _

Me neither.  But the intent was sincere.

_ Kate smirks, then chuckles.  He smiles. _

See you around, Tony.

_ “Likewise, Kate.” _

_ When she’s gone, he realizes he doesn’t need the drink anymore, and stumbles off to bed. _


	6. six

Gibbs briskly paces into their hospital room, and the pain is hidden under his brown jacket, under layers of callouses and promises that he would protect this woman, this daughter of his that no one else would care for.  Ziva.

It’s obvious Tony loves her, that she loves him back; and their looks scream that they’re in love.

It’s amazing how much they’ve matured.

Years ago, he would’ve whacked them both on the head and sent them home.  If they dared to do anything like it again, he’d fire one of them.

Now, as he observes them--hands clenched together, sitting up in (separate) hospital beds, smiling and laughing (most likely at something his Senior Field Agent has said) though she will be gone the next morning and Gibbs knows Tony will fall down--he’s  _ happy _ .

“Never thought they’d end up so good together.  Thought it’d last a month or two, then once the lust was gone they’d separate and you’d have to break up one of the best teams of the Navy.”  Vance strides up from behind him, hands folded behind his back.  The signature toothpick is gone (has been, for a while now, he knows) and with its absence comes a twitching frown.  “Thought that’s why you had that rule.  But now…”

Gibbs sighs wearily.  “You having second thoughts, Leon?”

“Not a doubt, Gibbs.  It’s just...such a shame.”  He nods, evidently deep in his thoughts on Eli David and his forsaken daughter.

“Maybe you should think of that the next time you take someone out of my team.”

“And yet you agreed.”  He turns to face Gibbs, daring him to say something, to say that Vance is wrong.

But he knows.

Ziva hasn’t been herself.

Not since the hailing of bullets and the guilt and the stubbornness and the lack of forgiveness.  It’s written so clearly on her face, no matter how much she tries to hide it; just like Tony when her body was thrown into an ocean, drowned, lost at sea.

Now that it’s over, that Ilan is dead, now what?  (He remembers that night, that night where Tony held a gun playing the piano; he remembers it strongly, though he wishes he didn’t.  He knows if Ziva had really died, if Saleem had been killed and Tony got his revenge, he wouldn’t live for long afterwards.  They’re the same, his two agents.  He notices because they’ve become more like his children than ever.)

Another exasperated sigh escapes from his lips, and he walks heavily into the hospital room (Vance following him, he’s sure), his heart full and yet hollow.

* * *

“You’ll drink this, then Gibbs will extract you from the mortuary.  From there, he’ll brief you on your cover story and check ups, which Gibbs and DiNozzo will conduct.  It will look like the bullet wounds were too much for you,” Vance explains, mixing a liquid from a syringe into a cup of water.  He looks from left to right, from Gibbs to DiNozzo.  “The only people with this knowledge is us.  No one else.  Even the rest of the team.”

He puts the cup down and places the syringe into his coat.  Chocolate eyes meet with Ziva’s, and he says, in an informal, vulnerable voice that isn’t his own, “I am sorry.”

Tony observes this in a fashion one watches a movie.  It’s the only way he’ll stay sane as Ziva holds the cup in her hand, rolls it around, observing the liquid; finally looking up in reply.  “I am sorry as well, Director.”

He reads her so well, so when she looks so composed as Director Vance nods to the room, swallowing, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a fish out of water, he doesn’t believe her straight face, her accepting mouth in a straight line.  Her eyes scream that she’s afraid and her eyebrows tell him that no, she is not at all fine.

His hand acts of its own volition, and finds her fingers, clenching them.

“Ziva,” a tender voice says; and it takes Tony a second to recognize it as Gibbs.  

He steps forward, and his hand caresses her cheek, strokes her temple, kisses her forehead, like when she first woke up, like so many times Tony will never know.

He holds tighter as she silently cries into her father’s chest (her true father) and whispers, “Thank you, Gibbs.  I cannot thank you enough for everything you have done….for  _ me _ .”

Tony wants to look away.  The moment is too private; so he focuses at their fingers threaded silently together, held tightly into white knuckles as he hears his boss say, “I will see you later, Ziva.”

She laughs with relief.  “Of course.  You’re extracting me, after all.”

Gibbs walks outside, and the room echoes of his footsteps.

A silence.

This is the last time…they will ever talk.  For who knows how long.

Suddenly, he can’t breathe; like he’s been taken into some higher air pressure, and everything is exerting their force into him; and he  _ can’t breathe _ .

“Tony.”

It’s her voice, after all, that breaks him out of his reverie and yet breaks him even more entirely; for it was her first who stole him out of his imagination of Kate, naked in the bullpen, it’s her voice that jerks him awake with, “Jean-Paul...my little furry bear.”  Her voice coaxes him into reality while stoking him into another world of memories and fantasies and  _ what could have been _ and  _ what it is now _ .

He has no idea how to live without it.  He’s tried.  He couldn’t.

He prayed, that when he found it again, he would never have to learn to live without it.

And yet.  The moment arrives.

“Tony.”

Again, reality; hitting him hard on the ground and slapping him into  _ his last chance _ .

Or maybe it’s her palm, and not the concrete, that touches him, grounds him; or maybe it’s her voice, not the echoing of gunshots, that he hears; or maybe it’s her lips, not the blood, he tastes.

He finds that he’s hungry for it, for her touch, her voice, her lips; and he turns to her, eyes full of concern, tears, fear, but the last part is how he knows this is the right thing to do: he sees the conviction that they will meet again.

But he doesn’t want a single day in between the moments when they do meet and when they don’t.

“Ziva,” he says, and he can finally breathe again; but it chokes off into a sob.  They collide, and it’s a smashing of lips, sweat, and tears; because this may be the last time they ever kiss, they ever talk, they ever glance at each other, and he forgets everything but this moment, yet remembers everything in a cycle of memories. Eli, the elevator, Mike Franks, Paris, Somalia, Israel and Rivkin, Jenny, Jeanne, Paula, the summer without Gibbs, Kate. It's then he knows, as if he didn't know already, that he's in love with Ziva David.

Death is their solace; separation is their curse.

If they had died that day before departing to Israel, they would have died together.

But now, it is different.  Now, one must live without the other whether alive or dead.  At least, until Parsa is eliminated.

He closes his eyes.  He has to be strong, for the both of them.  It’s what he knows how to do.

Tony pulls away and smiles. If only he could dance again with her once more, staring at each other, arms around her waist.  “Hey.  I will see you again, you understand?  Look, I’ll even drink with you.  And I’ll be the one mailing you all sorts of weird stuff, postcards in code, Bond stuff like that.”

He manages to make her laugh, even in the darkest of times, the tears mixing into her smile.  “Yes, I imagine you will be very excited for that.”

“And we promised.”

“Yes, we did.”  Her expression turns somber.

“Hey,” he says, trying his very best to keep positive: something they both have to learn.  He cups her cheek, and in their final moments, hazel meets with brown.  “I love you, Ziva David.”

“And I love you, Tony DiNozzo.”

She picks the cup up again, raising it to her lips; then stops to look at him, raising his own cup of water (just water, of course) to his.

Ziva raises the cup in cheers.  “Todah.”

He smiles sadly, melancholy weighing it down.  It’s never been this hard to smile before.  “Prego.”

And they drink.

* * *

_ “You okay?” _

He sighs, then looks at Ziva.  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

She smiles, but even then, whatever this concoction is is working rapidly.

_ “I just got shot at point-blank range, DiNozzo, what do you think?” _

“Needs more water.  Then it would’ve tasted like Gibbs’s Bourbon.”

He chuckles nervously.  Her eyelids drift further into a deadly state.

_ “You won’t be taking any Pilates class tomorrow.”  _

“Huh.  We should consult the bartender.”

_ “You did good.” _

There’s no response, and he fears she’s already gone.  He closes his eyes, and he feels as if her hand will lose circulation, but he doesn’t care and holds on.

_ “For once, Kate, DiNozzo’s right.” _

“Tony…”

“Yes?”

“Laila tov.”

_ Kate laughs.   _

Her smile.

So peaceful.

_ “I thought I’d die before I ever heard---” _

His throat is closing up, but he has to say it before she misses it, before she can never hear anything from him again until the time comes.

“Buonanotte.”

Her hand turns limp in his.

_ B _

_ A _

_ N _

_ G _

_. _

The heart monitor flatlines.

* * *

_ He doesn’t remember how he got home. _

_ Maybe Gibbs drove him.  Maybe McGee. _

_ He doesn’t seem to care how, though. _

_ His backpack drops to the ground with a thud, and like routine, he puts his gun in his box, and looks through his movies. _

_ The Godfather should be a good choice for today.  He opens the case, walking over to the phone to order--- _

_ His reflection catches on the disk--- _

_ His face is bloody. _

_ Oh, God; has he concocted the plague again, oh God--- _

_ He rushes to the bathroom, rinsing it off, getting ready to vomit blood in the toilet, but it doesn’t come.  And there isn’t even a hint of washed-off blood on his face. _

_ He looks in the mirror to examine whatever the hell he did, or whatever the heck he saw, and whatever is keeping him and his sanity from watching The Godfather: _

_ His face is clean.  Red, even; from the looks of it, from scrubbing it off too much… _

_ His face is red, like blood… _

_ Red… _

_ Kate. _

_ Kate. _

_ He blinks, thinking.   _

_ Kate.   _

_ Something happened today, didn’t it? _

_ Kate. _

_ Her blood----on his face-----no, no--- _

_ Somehow vomit, leftovers from some kind of takeout---was it Chinese?---is all over his hands, his suit (oh, God, the suit), and something red is in it, dripping, dripping like  _

_ Kate’s  _

_ blood all over his face… _

_ No. _

_ It’s just his imagination. _

_ But it’s not, isn’t it?   _

_ Her blood splattered all over him, just like his vomit; except his vomit doesn’t taste bitter like the taste of death, like copper, like blood… _

_ This time, he knows it’s coming, so he rushes to the toilet, retching all he can into it; until he has to flush it out to repeat the process, twice. _

_ Kate _

_ was smiling, then she wasn’t… _

_ Kate _

_ was standing, then she wasn’t… _

_ All over his face… _

_ He takes the scrub from his shower, pours soap onto it, turns the shower on, and dives headfirst into the water, welcoming, cold, and jarring. _

_ His senses, his nerves seem to numb (weren’t they numb before?) at the impact, jutting down into his face like bullets, down into his forehead like  _

_ Kate, _

_ dripping off his face like her blood.  He rips off his clothes, because he’s in the damn shower with his clothes on, for God’s sake, because  _

_ Kate _

_ is dead, and he can’t take it anymore without her banter and her irritation and intolerance at his belligerence, a word he actually learned from _

_ Kate. _

_ Her name is so painful, but he can’t stop thinking it, he can’t stop saying it, he can’t stop seeing  _

_ Kate _

_ fall down, he can’t stop seeing her blood, can’t stop tasting it and feeling it… _

_ The vomit comes, and this time he smells it before he tastes it and feels it. _

_ Finally, in a pile of his vomit, clothes, and water; he’s retched it all out, his throat is dry and hoarse; and he thinks he’s been crying, but he’s not sure.  Maybe it’s just the shower water.  Or maybe it’s the rain.  He thinks it was raining when he climbed up to his apartment.  Did he climb up to his apartment?  Did he take the elevator? _

_ His mind is lost, and it’s a temporary solace from the truth as of now, and he is alright with it.  For now. _

_ So he backtracks, because this always worked, the memories always helped.  Somewhat.   _

_ While he cleans, he thinks he remembers walking up the stairs to his apartment, grabbing onto the railing in a trance, shouldering his backpack in his nightly routine. _

_ Before that, he climbed out of Gibbs’s car.  He remembers the car ride is silent, and he almost laughs at that---with Gibbs, it’s always silent.  Well, most of the time. _

_ What happened before that? _

_ Before that… _

_ The vomit is gone, the bathroom scrubbed clean; but not before he shook all the remaining particles off his clothes (now in the washer---somehow, he made it there naked). _

_ He blinks at the mirror, where he stood who knows how long ago; and he knows it will be a long night.  Pulling a fresh set of clothes on, he walks back to the dropped case on the way to the phone.  _

_ Thank God.  Al Pacino and Marlon Brando rest safely inside the case, intact, though the case is open.  He imagines the impact was jarring for the DVD, too. _

_ He picks it up, closes it, and places it back in its original spot.  He decides he’s not in the mood for James Caan.  Nor is he in the mood for pizza. _

_ He glances around the apartment, wondering if anything else needs cleaning or scrubbing; but now, he can’t stop feeling it again.  He just can’t stop; just stop, Anthony, stop, he thinks to himself. _

_ The bathroom is where he’ll sleep tonight.  Who knows what might happen if he doesn’t.  He doesn’t want his bed sheets to contact with some liquid of leftover pizza or takeout (especially not Chinese---that kung pao chicken still smells in here); and he doesn’t want to go back and forth if he ever needs to scrub leftover blood again. _

_ He thinks he’s falling asleep when he realizes---he didn’t clean his ear out.  It feels wet.  Sticky. _

_ Kate’s blood.  In his ear. _

_ He scrubs, again and again, until his whole face is raw and red and he thinks he’ll go bald if he cleans his scalp again. _

_ Kate. _

_ Kate _

_ was his first partner he lost.  The first partner that died. _

_ Oh, God; don’t take away Gibbs, or that kid from me...Abby, Ducky… _

Tony.

_ That’s Kate’s voice.  It can’t...it can’t be… _

Tony.  Calm down.

_ “You’re not real.  You’re dead.” _

_ He isn’t surprised by how lost, how hoarse, how pained his voice sounds.  He’s been through this before.  But  _

_ Kate _

_ is surprised by the weight of his voice. _

_ Kate _

_ is always surprised of him, no matter how she says she's not surprised.  It’s _

_ Kate, _

_ after all. _

Tony, I’m sorry.

_ “Rule number---” _

I know.

_ “Just ‘cause you’re dead, Katie, doesn’t mean you can break the rules.” _

Is there a rule against visiting the living?

_ “I don’t know, why don’t you ask Gibbs?  He’s bound to write that one down, at least.” _

Hmm.  Funny.

_ “You aren’t laughing.” _

No.  I’m not.

_ “You aren’t smiling, either.”  His voice catches on that. _

_ He’ll never see or hear _

_ Kate _

_ smile or laugh again. _

Tony, Tony.   _ Her voice is so clear, when it’s supposed to be dead.  He’s not sure whether he’s scared or grateful a ghost is visiting him, whether to be frightened at the sight when he finally looks or happy she’s here. _

_ She’s wearing black.  There’s a nine-millimeter hole in the middle of her forehead, and he wants to throw up all over again; but then she’s right there, right beside him, kneeling down and putting her arms around him as he cries. _

_ “You’re dead, Kate.” _

_ He hasn’t sobbed like this in a while. _

_ “It’d be fine...if you hadn’t...all that blood…” _

I know.  I’m sorry. __ I’m so sorry, Tony.

_ Kate _

_ sobs into his shoulder, too.  They’re both crying, both keeping each other alive: one by the memories, the other by becoming the memory. _

_ “This reminds me of the end of Butch and Sundance.  Feels like we’re both dying.” _

Shut up, Tony.

_ He pulls away, rubbing his face a final time as the tears fall away.  He feels like her blood is all over him, like it’s dripping onto him again, but when he looks, all that’s moving on her face is the salty water. _

_ “I really liked you, Kate.” _

Don’t make me say it, DiNozzo.

_ He almost laughs at that. _

_ “I don't think I'll ever…” _

Don't make stupid promises, DiNozzo.

_ “I don't know if I can love someone ever again.” That whisper will haunt him the rest of his life, he knows. He knows, before he ever said it, he knew. Yet he still utters it, and it happens _

_ just _

_ like _

_ that, _

_ a promise is a curse, unfulfilling and scarring. _

I know you don't mean it, Tony.

_ “I think I do.” _

You'll see. There'll be someone who makes you forget everything in a moment and remember everything at the same moment. That's when you know you love someone. When you know you're in love with someone.

_ “That ever happen to you, Kate?” He's calm now. But he wants to know where his partner received this wisdom from. _

I really liked you, too, Tony.  _ Her hands are on his shoulders, and he realizes he's never been this close to her, and  _

_ Kate _

_ comforts him from beyond death like she's never have before. _

You're going to be okay.

_ “Promise?” He sounds like a child, and for a minute, he thinks he sees his mother behind her, smiling. _

I promise, Tony.

_ He nods, and his mother's gone.  _

_ Kate _

_ smiles and so does he. _


	7. seven

When the nurses and doctors come in and they attempt to resuscitate her, to no avail, he doesn’t cry.  

When McGee comes with Abby that night, to find no one but him is there (Gibbs had retreated to his boat, maybe named after her, for the evening), and he has to break the news to her, (maybe his throat closes up and his voice is breaking) he doesn’t cry.  

When he comes back for desk duty with a cane two months later, and he stares at her vacant desk, emptied out by Agent Murray, he doesn’t cry (he feels like drowning in Scotch that night, though, or punching a hole in that guy’s face when he suggested that the picture was his, and questioned how close they were).  

When Ducky demands to see her body, and Gibbs has to tell him he had her “cremated”, and the old man bursts into a story about tea and memories, he doesn’t cry.

When he scoops up unknown ashes and throws them into the sea, he doesn’t cry (because he knows, if she were dead, she’d want to be buried in Israel soil; not her home, but her blood).

When he gets pictures and a travel brochure of China the next day, he doesn’t cry (instead, he sends back pictures of Jet Li, with a note that says, “ _ If you see him, ask him why the hell he wasted his time in The Expendables. _ ”).

When no news of Parsa comes the rest of the year, and Christmas is bitter as they carry on the tradition of  _ It’s a Wonderful Life _ , he doesn’t cry (what he does do, though, is watch  _ The Sound of Music _ alone in his apartment).  

When Probie Bishop comes and sits atop her desk, he doesn’t cry (in a way, he approves; it’s better than staring at an empty desk, lonely, and it keeps him from lapsing into a period of longing until Gibbs comes and slaps him lightly on the back of his head).  

He doesn’t cry.  

He wonders, vaguely (like he always does), whether he should.  He decides it’d be a waste of time.

* * *

When the tears do come, it’s after they’ve seen more of Benham Parsa’s cruelty.  

When the tears do come, it’s after Delilah’s stranded at the hospital, and Tim with her; after Colonel Mann reconciles (of sorts) with Gibbs, and he feels a twinge of jealousy when he remembers: he lost his Shannon and Kelly a very, very long time ago.  

When the tears do come, it’s when Ellie Bishop (now a proud member of the team) and Gibbs proudly step off the elevator and declare what’s rightfully made them proud: Benham Parsa is dead.  He was a monster.  Now he is just a man whose blood has stopped circulating, whose lungs have stopped breathing.

And it’s then he locks eyes with Gibbs, then with the Director, and yells, “I’ll be back in three days!” to the clueless team (save a smirking Gibbs and a nod of approval from the Director).  

When the tears do come, it’s when he steps off a plane into Shanghai, when he recites his words carefully over and over again on his way to the Gobi Desert, to Gansu, and to Daohuang.  

When the tears do come, it’s in a beautiful landscape of desert and isolation and a red palace and lake, an oasis.  It’s when he sees her again, after who knows how long--a year? two?---and she’s more beautiful than he remembered.  Her voice, so familiar, feels unknown to him, and it takes him a minute to hear her say, “ _ Tony _ .”

He walks as if he’s in a dream, and he touches her, caresses her cheek, flicks her curls back behind her ear, and whispers back her name.  She stands still, mesmerized by his arrival; until she concedes, her shoulders relaxing and she breathes a smile of relief.

“It’s over.  Parsa’s  _ dead _ .”

Only they exist in this oasis, this land of relief and rest in the middle of their deserts, and when they kiss, it’s fulfilled.  That night is the night they cry into each others’ mouths, spilling and mixing onto each others’ skin, with no question of why the tears come as they do.

It’s endless.  

They come as they lay in bed, facing each other, after hearing her tell him of what she's done over the past year (help orphans and watch as monks find her peace, as she realizes her peace is with her family---with her home), and he whispers, "I love you, Ziva."

She whispers back, "Todah, Tony."

"Prego."

The last time they exchanged these words, they were two lovers at the crossroads of life and death, of separating and staying. The first time, they were two strangers in a limbo of loss and grief and misplaced trust.

"Laila tov," she mumbles as her eyes close; this time with the promise of waking next to him at dawn.

The tears are, for once, tears of joy, and but he also feels bittersweet, as he feels the ghosts---Jenny, Jeanne, Paula,  _ Kate--- _ disappear, finally, with a smile of content and relief. 

For this time, they are two lovers finding peace in each other, in an oasis in the middle of the Gobi Desert.

"Buonanotte."


End file.
